Christmas 2010 - Bah Humbug

I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas Holiday. Mine was the usual SNAFU.

DivaMom and I live about 1 hour drive from the rest of the family, so we make the drive down to my aunt's house for the major holidays (Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas). I told you all about Thanksgiving (waiving to my cousin that reads my blog), and Christmas wasn't much different. Same menu, for the most part. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

DivaMom and I drive down to my grandparent's house and arrive about 6:00pm to pick them up to take them to my Aunt's house. When we arrived, Grandma tells us that my Aunt called her to find out when we were coming. Ok...so my Aunt knows that DivaMom is driving all of us...why didn't she call either DivaMom, or I? DivaMom and I had no idea what time we were suppose to come to dinner, we just decided to leave home around 5 because we got tired of sitting around waiting. We gather my grandparents, get them in the car, get to my Aunt's house and my Aunt says "Everything is ready, you could have come whenever you wanted" (remember the "Everything is ready" part). We do the required sitting around starring at each other in the living room, then my Uncle says the blessing so we can start eating whenever we want.

DivaMom is the first to head into the kitchen, making a brief detour into the dining room to grab a plate (shockingly the table was set this time, sort of...the silverware was still jumbled in a Ziploc bag) with my Aunt hot on her tail. DivaMom makes her plate and the food is cold. Not room temperature cold, REFRIGERATOR cold!  How are you going to tell people to help themselves to food that is ready when the food is ice cold? That isn't ready food! A normal person would warm the food up then tell us when it's really ready to eat, not my Aunt. She has us microwave our food, one plate at a time, in the world's oldest microwave. I'm sure I will end up with brain cancer from standing in front of it waiting for my food to warm up. 20 minutes later, my mother sits down at the dining room table (My cousin's boyfriend (aka CBF), my cousin and I gave up standing in the doorway of the kitchen to make our plates and sat down at the table to wait) and eats. Then cousin, CBF and I went and made our plates. The food was good, just cold.

After what seemed like a couple hours, we all ate (except Grandma, but that's another story), we opened presents, and then it was time for dessert. As usual DivaMom and I picked up cakes from OliverT's (a pumpkin roll and strawberry shortcake cake) and my aunt made a cream cheese pound cake, and a German chocolate cake. My aunt asked my cousin to set out the desserts, and cousin was doing a perfect job of it, despite having to clear the dining room table as her mother sat on the couch barking at her to hurry up. In between barks, my aunt was also telling my mother (and me since I was standing right there) about how she *thinks* she perfected the pound cake. First of all...pound cake sucks. Sorry. Second...cream cheese pound cake sucks more than butter pound cake. Third...pound cake with nothing to top it sucks the most. Forth...when feeding guests, even if they are family, feed them items you know are good, don't treat them like Guinea pigs! My aunt had a plain cream cheese pound cake. No toppings, just plain. My mother is a good sport though, once cousin finished setting up the cakes DivaMom cut a slice of the pound cake, OK, it wasn't really a cut. It was more like sawing. This cake was DRY, but DivaMom made the best of it and cut a piece of Strawberry Shortcake cake and used the topping from that to give the pound cake some moisture. I had a slice of pumpkin roll that was fantastic, and a slice of the homemade German chocolate cake. I have to give my Aunt credit...the German chocolate cake was great! It was moist, flavorful, fresh, just perfection! I would have been happy if she had only made the German chocolate cake (but CBF has a nut allergy so she had to make something he could eat, but CBF knows I always have his back in the dessert department).

Holidays with family are always interesting (I didn't even tell you about the non-food related stuff that happened!), but there are always lessons to be learned:
1.Let your guests know what time they should arrive.
2. If you cook food the day before, make sure you warm it up before declaring it's ready for everyone to eat.
3. Set the table (learned at thanksgiving). At least take everything out of the storage containers (aka Ziploc bags) so it's easy for your guests to serve themselves.
4. Don't serve pound cake with nothing to top it (or just don't serve pound cake).
5. Don't use your guests as Guinea pigs.
6. Have lots of booze on hand. Everyone will be thankful especially when dealing with family.

These simple things can make any get together much more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Review - Big Boy (Nationwide)

I hadn't been to Big Boy in probably 10 years, so I thought today would be the day I returned. I have been seeing advertisements for the soup and sandwich lunch deal and the food looked so good, I had been wanting to try it.

I walked into the restaurant (Grand Blanc, MI) and was met with chaos. So many people just standing around everywhere (I assume to pay), no sense of order, no definitive line for the register, no greeter, just chaos. I ducked into the bathroom to wash my hands and OMGoodness the smell! Wow! It smelled like something crawled up an animals butt, died, and was pooped out of the dying carcass! I won't be going back in there again! When I came out the chaos had dissipated, but there still wasn't any greeter, nor was there anyone at the register. I finally walked up to the little old lady in the blue big boy shirt that was straightening up the salad bar and asked her if I can sit anywhere or should i wait to be seated. I figured that was a reasonable question, but she looked like a dear in the headlights. After taking a few moments to process what I had asked she said I could sit anywhere and she'd bring a menu to me. Once seated and with menu in hand I set about the task of picking my lunch.

It's a pretty standard diner menu, but they had a few new items that sounded good. When the server arrived and asked what I would like I asked her about the soups. As soon as she said Cabbage Soup I forgot everything else as I started having nightmare flashbacks to the "Cabbage Soup Diet" that my mother forced me on when I was in high school (yes my mother has a sadistic side). I decided to skip the soup/sandwich combo and went with a Texan Jack BLT (one of the new menu items), fries, unsweet iced tea, and a hot fudge ice cream cake for dessert.

The sandwich was lettuce, tomato, bacon, Pepper Jack cheese, on Texas toast...if you could really call it toast. it was slightly brown, but mostly soft bread. I would have liked it toasted a little longer. The cheese was cold, and the bacon was pathetic consisting mostly of very thin bacon crumbs. The lettuce was the typical iceberg lettuce (aka: crunchy water), and I picked off the tomatoes. I like tomatoes, but I'm allergic so I don't eat them often. The fries were really good. They were fresh, hot, and lightly salted. I was impressed with the fries. The hot fudge ice cream cake was ok. The cake was dry, the ice cream was good though, and the hot fudge was amazing. It tasted like Sanders hot fudge. The hot fudge and ice cream would have been better by themselves.

Overall, Big Boy was pretty much as I remember...ok food, for ok prices. Typical diner. I think in the future if I want diner food I'll pick one of the little mom and pop places in the area rather than a chain with mass produced food.

Review - Casa Real (Oxford and Flint, MI)

A new restaurant, Casa Real (billed as having "Authentic Mexican Cuisine"), opened in Flint not too long ago. It is in a prominent location, and the parking lot looked pretty crowded, so I decided to drop in for dinner.

When I walked in it looked like a cliche. The walls were painted in this wannabe adobe finish, and all kinds of other gaudy decorations filled the room. Usually a good restaurant will smell heavenly when you walk in, but not Casa Real. It had a very faint smell of tortillas, but not the usual appetite inducing, mouthwatering aromas. There was a wait for a table, but there were seats at the bar so I decided to have my dinner there.

The menu is extensive, with just about any Mexican dish you could want. Since I wanted to try a variety of things I ordered the "Casa Real Specialty (serves 2)" which consisted of 1 Ground Beef Tostada, one ground beef hard taco, one ground beef enchilada, one pork tamale (which I exchanged for another taco), one chicken burrito, one chile relleno, with rice and beans. While I waited for my food, I snacked on the complementary chips and salsa. The salsa is very good, but the chips taste like they came out of a bag. When the food arrived it was hot and looked incredible, but didn't smell like anything. I took a bite of a taco and the texture of the tortilla was very much like a shell from Old El Paso, but at least Old El Paso has flavor. Out of everything I ordered NOTHING tasted like much. The chile relleno had a flavor; it was nasty! It was nothing more than a mouthful of mush with a chili pepper in the middle. The outer layer of the pepper had some sort of crust on it, but it wasn't thick enough, or fried long enough or something. The rice was nothing more than white rice with some tomato paste to turn it a faint pink, not the rich orange-red that Spanish rice should have. It too was flavorless.

Desperately searching for flavor I ordered the Pastel de Tres Leches (Three Milk Cake). This was served ice cold, and hard as a brick. The cake itself had the texture of a dense cornbread, but the milks did soften it a little, very little. I wouldn't have minded this so much if the cake had been warmed just a little. It felt like they took it straight out of the refrigerator, plopped it on a plate, threw some chocolate sauce and whipped cream on it and sent it out.

Overall this was a disappointing experience. I don't think I'll be returning to Casa Real, nor would I recommend it.

Thanksgiving 2010

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and ate to their hearts content. Personally, Thanksgiving sucks in terms of the food. I can't eat turkey (unless I'm feeling fat and want to lose a few pounds by way of the porcelain throne), I hate ham, and most of the sides give me indigestion.

This year DivaMom put me in charge of picking wine and dessert (we went to my aunt's house for dinner). There's a little specialty shop near where we live called Oliver T's and they have an immense wine section and a bakery. I love one stop shopping!

I got up early Wednesday morning and ventured out to Oliver T's. I managed to beat the rush to the bakery and looked at the selection in awe. They have every kind of cake you can imagine, and a few you couldn't. We have a few people in the family (and extended family) with dietary restrictions, so I always have to make sure to get one cake with no nuts. This (thankfully) narrows my choices to about half. I selected an orange cream torte. It was a dense yellow cake with layers of orange and whipped cream filling. I also selected a key lime pie. As for the wine, DivaMom and I like sweet white wines, but I'm pretty burned out on Pinot Grigio and Moscoto so I selected a Vouvray.We live in Michigan and since it's November, I used my car as a supplemental refrigerator to store the cake and pie. I brought the wine inside for fear of freezing, I didn't want to have to try to clean up frozen wine from the carpet in my car.

Thursday afternoon we arrive at my aunt's house and fortunately dinner is ready! I uncork the wine and begin the merriment. I won't go into the dinner, since that's just not that important, but what is important is the wine. I love Vouvray. I don't often think about it because I don't see it that often, but I have to make more of an effort to keep some on hand! It's light, not overly sweet, and goes well with whatever you're eating, or just by itself.

As for the desserts, The Orange cake was ok, but just ok. Given a choice, I don't think I'd get it again (although my friend with the nut allergy liked it). The cake was dry, due in part that the sides of the cake were exposed (no frosting on the sides) and the orange parts weren't very orangy, but tasted artificial. The key lime pie on the other hand...OMG! It was amazing! The filling was the perfect blend of tart and sweet, the whipped cream was soft, light and not overwhelming, and the crust wasn't so sweet that when you bit into it that it crunched like sugar granules. I don't know what kind of crust it was, but it was tasty! My uncle (a.k.a the funniest man I know) doesn't usually eat much dessert, but he had at least 3 slices of pie! LOL!

If you go to Oliver T's I hope they have the Key Lime Pie. It's the best thing I've ever had from the bakery! Also check out the wine and beer selections, you are bound to find something you'll like!